Access Stability (Access XP)

[deutsch]

I have an Access XP database that keeps track of data for merging in Word. In addition I keep track of invoices.
There are 8 users at this point with a potential of going to 15. The users are using a run time version of the database, except for one person. Hers is a full version of Access XP. Her Access regularly crashes and corrupts the backend database. Also, the users regularly lose network connections. The network administrator says it is Access and recommends to move the whole thing to SQL Server.
I would love to get some opinions from you all about the recommendation.

Thanks,

[charlotte]

Access is extremely sensitive to network interruptions, far more so than any of the other Office apps. In fact, it acts as a sort of "miner's canary" for network problems. Network administrators customarily blame Access for these problems, but they really indicate a situation that needs to be looked at more closely. Things like a single chattering network card on a LAN can bring Access down intermittently. That isn't a problem with Access, it's a network issue, but it is far easier to blame Access than to track down the wiring or other hardware problems that exist but don't seriously affect other applications.

Moving the whole thing to SQL Server requires a database administrator and someone to convert the application and create a new front end. If the backend is SQL Server and you link the tables to an Access mdb front end, you don't gain any more network stability because Access will not tolerate network interruptions, regardless of the back end, and will not "repair" itself when the connection is reestablished. Your one person with full Access should be using the runtime as well. There is probably a difference between the versions of the files she is using and those installed with the runtime. That will definitely lead to the kind of crashes you describe. That person can use a shortcut that includes the runtime executable to run the application without changing their ability to use the full version of Access for other things.

[D Willett]

I had an oncurring problem like this which lasted for many months, only on one machine.
The database would crash 5, 6, 7 >>>>> times a day.
The database was run along side another database which was DOS Dataflex. The user continuously complained and there was nothing I could do.

I stripped the users database down to the bare essentials making the database as small as I could, updated ram, changed network cards, fiddled with connectors, in fact everything I could think of, resulting in telling the user to just put up with it.

Then one day we had to change the server because of a noisy mirror drive and hey presto, it never crashed again.
The conversations I had with our IT dept, defending Access you wouldn't believe, eventually I could send them a "Told you so" accompanied with an evil grin <img src=/S/evilgrin.gif border=0 alt=evilgrin width=15 height=15>

[deutsch]

Thank you so much for your reply.
How can I have a full version of Access on a PC and still have the user execute a run-time version of the database from the same PC?

Thank you,

[deutsch]

Thanks for the reply. I will try to convince the network guy to switch the databse to another server and see if that takes acre of the problem.

[charlotte]

Give the user a shortcut that includes the path to the runtime executable, as well as the full path and filename of the database. That tells the system to open the database using the runtime executable instead of the default Access executable associated with mdb files.